Opps …. never get lazy with your history ….. and other revelations

It’s that golden rule of all research which put simply is …. check your facts.

And now the BBC has it’s own "BBC Verify" which searches and challenges a vast range of assertions masquerading as facts.

But we all get lazy and I am no exception.

So, in a story on the origins of apple crumble I wrote “a recipe for it was in Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management dated 1896”, and despite not finding a reference in my own copy which had been published thirty-years earlier I went with the comment from an online article.*

I should have dug deeper but accepted the statement, and yesterday someone left the comment “I am looking for early crumble recipes and stumbled across your comment. 

Are you sure Mrs Beeton has a recipe for a crumble in 1865. I can see references to Mrs Beeton crumbles but whenever I research them they all seem to link to a blog post that made that claim erroneously. 

Would be great to be proven wrong but haven't found anything in Beeton this far!! Any hints much appreciated!”

All of which is a tad embarrassing and led me to consider taking down the original story but instead I will amend the copy including the comment and then go looking for later copies of Mrs Beeton.

But it does highlight that temptation to accept what is asserted as the truth.

Now truth and indeed facts are not set in stone, and as we all know new scholarship and chance finds can reverse a fact lead to a fresh interpretation and a new truth.

It is 43 years since the discovery of the Hitler Diaries which have now been proved as forgeries but for a brief period in the early 1980s some scholars, and some newspapers thought they were genuine, expended heaps of money acquiring them only to be disappointed at the discovery that they were made up.

My simple slip up may seem a world away and trivial in comparison to those diaries or the regular stories that the moon landings were fake, that there is a mystery to planes and ships disappearing in an area off Bermuda or countless other conspiracy theories, but of course it’s the same.

And that brings me back to Mrs. Beeton and the recipe for Sweet Macaroni Pudding.

It appears on pages 654 and 655 in the 1863 edition of The Book of Household Management and is further vindication of my oft told account of how as young kids in the 1950s we often ate spaghetti cooked with milk and sugar. 

The overwhelming response to that story is a mix of bewilderment, revulsion and incredulity and I have to say in some cases disbelief.  

And despite my frequent revisits to the story, I know some thought it was either a false memory or just made up.**

But then my friend, fellow writer and blogger Lois Elsden*** sent me Food in War Time - Vegetarian Recipes for 100 Inexpensive Dishes: And Helpful Suggestions for Providing Two Course Dinners for Six People for One Shilling, George W. Hall.

It was published during the Great War and there is boiled Macaroni “with a little sugar and milk [which] makes a very acceptable pudding”.***

It was that moment when I could proudly write “We are not an aberration and nor were alone” to which I can now push back the date when sweet pasta pudding was acceptable.

I don’t suppose its historical lineage well endear it to my sons and friends but there you are wait long enough and your own facts will come along.

Leaving me just to conclude with the observation of others on the importance of facts.

In a conversation with Rudyard Kipling in 1889 Mark Twain said "Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please”.  

And while I have yet to verify the following, I think they are worth throwing into the pot.  John Adams: "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." 

Daniel Patrick Moynihan: "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

Thomas Huxley: "Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact."

And that is that.

Pictures; The St Michael All Colour Cookery Book, Jeni Wright, 1976, recipe for  Sweet Macaroni Pudding, courtesy of Google Books, 2011, cover of the reprint Food in War Time, 2026,  and pasta to make a pudding from, 2026

*Apple crumble ….. it’s place in history .... and a lesson in doing your homework https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2021/02/apple-crumble-its-place-in-history-and.html

** We are not an aberration …… when you are not alone .... spaghetti, milk and sugar, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2026/07/we-are-not-aberration-when-you-are-not_02011329298.html

***Lois Elsden, Writer, https://loiselsden.com/

**** Food in War Time - Vegetarian Recipes for 100 Inexpensive Dishes: And Helpful Suggestions for Providing Two Course Dinners for Six People for One Shilling, George W. Hall 

Looking inside a grand Victorian house …. Rye Bank and the story of Mr. Bryce Smith ... part 1

In the course of the last few days I have got to know a lot about Mr. Bryce Smith, who lived at Rye Bank in Chorlton, described himself as a “calico printer”, owned a  prestigious warehouse on Nicholas Street in Manchester, and a factory in Whalley near Blackburn.

Inventory, 1891

I doubt I would ever have gone looking for him if I hadn’t been shown an inventory of the contents of his home which was made shortly after his death in 1892.

The inventory is now in the possession of Chris Griffiths who thought I would be interested, which of course I am.

Because, here spread over 57 foolscap pages and bound in  leather is an insight in to just what a wealthy family accumulated in their home.

Looking through the inventory I noted that the list of Mr. Smith’s library was covered  21 pages, his collection of oil paintings, water colour drawings and engravings over another two pages and his silver and plated articles across two more pages.

And that is just what caught my eye, leaving me to explore the full nineteen rooms along with the lists of linen, glass, and china.

Index to the Inventory, 1892

All of which will reveal much about the life of one well off Victorian family, here in Chorlton in the late 19th century.

The warehouse on Nicholas Street, 1883

Now, I knew of the existence of Rye Bank which stood in extensive grounds, facing Edge Lane and extending along the side of Ryebank Road, but I knew little of the people who occupied it or just when the house was demolished.

Just when the family moved into the property is a little unclear.  They were there by 1871, but may have been elsewhere on Edge Lane before that.

Either way in 1871 the Rate Books reveal that Mr. Smith was occupying Rye Bank which he owned, and he stayed for two decades.  The house had an annual estimated a rateable value of £229, which marked it off as the largest property on this bit of Edge Lane.

But then Bryce Smith was a wealthy man.  He left £162,622 on his death and his warehouse and offices on Nicholas Street, which are still there, bear witness to his financial standing.

There is a lot more.  His papers are deposited the Lancashire County Archive, and contain amongst other things  the “Bill of Quantities for the erection of a warehouse in Nicholas Street. Manchester for Bryce Smith Esq” in the August of 1873.

So watch this space.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; pages from the Inventory Rye Bank Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1892, courtesy of Chris Griffiths, and the Nicholas Street, showing the Smith warehouse, 1883, from Goads Fire Insurance maps, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Bryce Smith Papers, DDX 2/37Lancashire County Archives,

https://archivecat.lancashire.gov.uk/CalmView/Overview.aspx

Advertising things in 1959 ...… never miss an opportunity

 We are on Upper Brook Street with a group of houses about to be demolished.

But never underestimate the determination of an advertising company to use every available site to good use.

And so in 1959, as you passed these houses there were the boards advertising Navy Blue Cigarettes and Corn Flakes.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; never miss an advertising opportunity, 1959, 1959-2878.1courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?

Down at the Castle in the High Street with a bit of historical magic

Now one of the best things about history is when you get to touch it.

And for me it doesn’t that matter much whether it’s a Roman coin or a glass medicine bottle from the beginning of the last century.

To touch the object and know that somewhere on it will be the fingerprints of the person who first made it and a story that will twist and turn in all directions is magic.

One of my greatest treasures is a Viking oyster shell which had lain in the mud of Jorvik for a thousand years before the archaeologists of the City of York brought it back into the day light.

Back in 1978 when it was uncovered there were so many that they were put in a wooden barrel and were on sale for 10p.

The other find was from the back of our shed where Dad had carefully placed thirty copper earth rods made for one of those very early wireless sets.

The batch dated from the 1920s, had sat in our garden shed in Well Hall for years and had been made in the Acnaconda Works, Salford which is just down the road.

All of which is an introduction to this 17th century trade token which Tricia shared with me.

Tokens like this were issued by traders in the absence of low value coinage, and was a practice which extended into the 18th century.

In Eltham the oldest dates from 1649 and bears the names of Nathaniel and Tasmin Mercer who were running the Castle, while another from 1667.

They were unearthed when the old Castle pub was demolished, and also found was one for William Crich of the Grocers’ Arms Deptford dated 1663.

Now imagine how over the moon I was when Tricia said  "I have been investigating the attached farthing tokens concerning The Castle for some time. 

I have been trying to find out who the initials belong to (NT & wife T) reading your post today I now know it to be Nathaniel & Tasmin Mercer. So I am handing it over to you to add to your blog seeing as you have done all the hard work.

The description is as follows. 17c farthing token issued by NM and wife T at the Castelle Taverne, Issue date 1649, denomination farthing, metal copper alloy, diameter 14mm."

And that is it.  A pretty neat bit of joint research.

Location, Eltham

Picture, the 1649 Castle trade token courtesy of Tricia Lesley

Of horses, an RAF Band and a night at the Cheetham Assembly Rooms in November 1944

Now I wonder just how packed the Cheetham Assembly Rooms were, when the “Full RAF Rhythm Band” played on the Saturday of November 25 1944.

1944

Or for that matter whether the audience knew that part of their 10 shilling ticket entry was going to the Little Horses Charity Fund.

And that set me thinking about the charity and its need for money, particularly when the world was engulfed in a war that would ultimately see the death and displacement of millions, when members of the armed forces were at that moment fighting on mainland Europe and in the Far East and when the surrounding streets bore the scars of nights of German bombing.

I had never come across the Little Horses Charity but a search showed that there were quite a few charities devoted to the welfare of horses as well as other animals, one of which had opened a hospital for animals injured in air raids during the war.

At which point there will be a few who offer up detailed accounts of those welfare organizations particularly
those given over to horses which had a wretched time during the 19th and early 20th centuries when so much of our transport relied on horse drawn vehicles.

1959

I suspect there will also be a few with stories of the Assembly Rooms which opened in 1857 and lasted almost a century before it closed because if declining numbers, and according to one site was bought in 1960 with the intention of turning into a tyre warehouse.*

Now that was an ignominious ending for such a grand place, but its final chapter was perhaps even sadder, for after that century which saw concerts, soirees and late night suppers, it was demolished, with the site becoming first a petrol station and now a car wash business.

1965

All, a long way from the night when “Miss Stitt came as the White Cat and Miss Goldie as the owl in the ivy bush, ....... and Mr Bradshaw as a time-traveller, dressed as ‘a gentleman of the early twentieth century’” during the event arranged by "twenty bachelors of Manchester for 450 ladies and gentlemen on January 19th 1870".*

Leaving me just to thank David Harrop who provided the advert, and comment on the two pictures of the Rooms just before the end.

"Removed to Waterloo Road" 1965

Look very closely and on the second can be made out the notice announcing that “Fitzsimons Tyres Removed to Waterloo Road” and on the first the old telephone kiosk from which members of the band may well have phoned loved ones in the interval.

I doubt that there will be anyone who can offer up a memory of that November night, but I bet there will be quite a few who have other stories of the Assembly Rooms in equally magic nights.

Well I hope so.

Location; Cheetham Hill Road

Pictures; poster advertising the dance, 1944from the collection of David Harrop and the Assembly Rooms in 1959, R. Mirza, m16437, and 1965, W. Kay, m16303, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

The Library ..... the pub ..... and the oilman .... with a thank you to Village Eltham

Now I know there will be plenty of pictures of the library knocking around and I dare say some better quality versions of this one which dates from around 1915.

Eltham High Street, circa 1915

But I like it for all sorts of reasons, not least because of the detail it offers of the High Street on a bright sunny day, but also because like many it was somewhere I regularly went to, added to which it was where our Stella worked during the 1970s and into the next decade.

So not surprising then that it crops up on the blog in various stories including some that feature a painting by Peter Topping, who like me has been drawn to it, which is a tribute to the building given that Peter is from Preston and has never visited Eltham.*

But I digress, going back to the photograph along with the Library on the north side of the High Street is The Rising sun whose landlady in 1918 was a Mrs. Shirley Relph who took over the pub after the death of her husband in 1909.  He was a William Relph who offered up beer and cheer from sometime in the 1880s and moved into the new Rising Sun when it was built in 1904.

The Rising Sun, 1915

The old pub according to our historian R.R.C Gregory was about 200 years old when it was demolished and replaced by the present pub .

Nor is that the only thing that intrigues me about William.

I had almost given up hope of finding him and then as you do I came across his widow Julia who was still in charge in 1911, and it was Julia who caught my imagination.

She was born in Cadiz, Spain and of course that raises all sorts of intriguing speculation.

But before I could go off on a flight of fancy I discovered her maiden name was West and like William her father was a publican.

That said her parents were in Spain between the birth of her brother in 1852 and when she was born two years later which may explain why they are missing from the census returns for the middle decades of the 19th century.

Directly opposite between Pound Place and Elm Terrace there was a group of tradesmen, which included Frederick Cook, baker at 142, George Mence Smith, oilman at 144, the coach builders Robert Whittaker & Coin 144a, leaving just William Ryde and Sons who were ironmongers and Thomas Grant Bootmaker.**

I am indebted to Paula Richardson, who along with Gus White and Ian Murdock produced a delightful little book in 1984 entitled Village Eltham, which   included 36 photographs of Eltham and the surrounding district drawn from their collection of old picture postcards.***

The book was sent to me by my friend Barbara who like me attended Crown Woods, and like me left Eltham in the late 1960s, me for Manchester and Barbara for Ontario,

Village Eltham, 1984

All of which means the book has travelled far.

Now ever mindful of copyright I only reproduced one image from the book along with the cover, and expressed the hope that the authors would see the story and grant me permission to use some more of the images.

And so just a few days after I posted the story  Pauls got in touch writing, “Hi Andrew - this brought back memories. We published this privately. Most of the postcards were collected by my ex partner, Ian and his friend, Gus. We were all members of the local history group in Eltham. 

I lost touch years ago when I moved to Australia, but I'm sure as long as you give us credit, it is ok for you to share some images, as the whole point of the book was to take them to a wider audience”.****

So I shall do just that.

*Eltham Library, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Eltham%20Library

**Eltham High Street, 1918, Post Office Directory, London, 1918

***A little bit of Eltham from Ontario in Canada, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2022/04/a-little-bit-of-eltham-from-ontario-in.html

 ****Eltham Village,  Gus White, Ian Murdock and Paula Richardson in 1984 and published by G & Pi Publications Eltham

A new park for Chorlton?

It’s not much of a story really but it does point to the changes that had been taking place in Chorlton over the last two decades of the 19th century.

Before the rapid development of housing in and around the railway station and along the Wilbraham and Barlow Moor Roads there had been plenty of open spaces with fields to walk around and woods to explore in and ponds and water courses to play beside.

This changed as more and more of Chorlton was given over to rows of houses which prompted one resident to write to the Manchester Guardian, “being so near town, there is a demand for houses and they rise like mushrooms.  

Rows, avenues, and semi detached in abundance, each with a small garden, where flowers can be grown if the smoke from the chimneys will allow; but very few have a grass plot large enough for the children to play on.”*

Apparently there had been hopes that a good site on Wilbraham Road might have been turned into a park but it was sold for building, “then the residue of an estate in Barlow Moor Road was for sale which is nicely wooded; that has now been sold to the Roman Catholics.”  All of which led the writer to fear that “Chorlton will soon be as crowded as Alexandra Park but without the park.”

But there was one field left which “in the general opinion of the residents is the right spot for the much talked of park.  The plot extends from Wilbraham Road to a new road about to be cut – Holland Road, I think it is to be called.  It is flanked on one side by Cavendish Road [Corkland] and on the other by the railway.”

It says much for the period that the writer expected the land and the maintenance of the park would be achieved by public subscription.

In the event it never happened and the plot was built on.  It would be a few more years before the Recreational Ground on Beech Road was laid out and well into the 1920s before Chorlton Park was established.

But next time I take the short cut down Zetland Road  [Holland] to Corkland Road [Cavendish] and onto Morrisons I’ll reflect on what might have been.

Pictures;, detail from the OS map of Lancashire, Manchester and South East, 1888-93, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk, and Holland Road from the Lloyd collection

* Manchester Guardian May 24 1892